Lucian Marin
Insanely simple
These days I learnt that there’s no such thing as too simple. After years of design work, that’s a relief. I’ve told clients that simple is the way to go, but they always asked for more beautifully complex things.
The books
It all started when I found out about Insanely Simple, a book by Ken Segall. Even though I only read the first chapter, it changed everything for me. I got the idea — and the idea was insanely simple. In two days I rethought, rather than redesigned, both my website and this web service I’m actually writing on. It’s simply amazing.
But there’s always a but. Simplicity can be dangerous for text-based interfaces. You can’t just splash some text on a site and think you’ve done something wonderful. That’s why we have this thing called typography — and there’s an insanely simple book for that too. Matthew Butterick’s Practical Typography is the body, the head and the legs for anyone who wants to design typographically rich interfaces. Again, I got the idea by reading the Typography in Ten Minutes introduction Butterick wrote. I took the whole night, skipped what I already knew, and finished the book.
The benefits
The benefits are enormous. I’m more focused on the things that actually matter — like the heading text rather than the style of the header. I’ve changed my mind about line height: it can’t be higher than 3/2, and it should be slightly lower, to keep the reader’s eyes on the text. Information density increased greatly for both Markdawn and my website. They’re now more suitable for small-screen devices. That’s a huge win — the best Christmas gift I could give myself, from myself.
If you find this text boring, there’s a blog I recommend where you can enjoy simple aesthetics. Then maybe you’ll want to come back, read the books and leave a remark.